Criminal Minds - Keeper - Review “Keeping Watch”

Before I begin, apologies for the long delay in sharing this review. I’d planned to have this up prior to what should’ve been last week’s new episode, but with the World Series pushing episode five back to this week, I figured it might be better to hold off on posting the review for “Keeper” until we got closer to the next episode.

Obviously, the most important storyline to take away from “Keeper” are the latest developments in the burgeoning storyline regarding Reid and his mom. Those of us whose hopes were raised with the good news involving Diana Reid early on in the episode had them dashed pretty darn quickly later on, but sad as the events that occurred were, this episode still did a good job of setting up the foundation for what we’re likely to expect as this whole situation with Reid’s mom continues to unfold throughout the course of this season.

This episode’s case further expanded on the overall theme of taking care of family, as it dealt with one family member going to any lengths imaginable, no matter how risky or tough, to protect another family member. Both storylines ended on a down note, but there were still enough touching moments that gave us viewers some twinges of hope.

You know the drill – let’s get into the nitty gritty details.

The Case:

A state trooper and a store clerk are chatting about a homeless shoplifter who’s been popping up at the store lately. He doesn’t steal much – just dog food – but obviously he’s not thrilled about the situation all the same. The clerk believes said shoplifter’s been hanging out in the woods nearby, and the trooper offers to take a look and see what he can find out there. And indeed, his search reveals what looks like a makeshift campsite.

The trooper’s not the only person wandering around in the woods, though. Not long after he starts poking around the campsite, we see what looks to be the homeless man in question watching him from the nearby trees. We all know where this is going, right? The trooper’s going to get hurt or killed by the guy lurking in the background.

Or not. In a curious twist, the deputy doesn’t encounter the homeless man at all. Rather, the guy panics and takes off running away from the site.

And why did the guy run away? Because of the disturbing find the trooper makes: a bag full of bloodied, and dismembered, human remains. Yep. Time to bring in the BAU.

Before the team gets the details of the case, Rossi gives a brief update on Hotch’s current whereabouts. He’s still on duty, but is “available for consultation” if needed. So there’s that.

As for the case itself, the first piece of information that immediately grabs the team’s attention is the news that the body parts were found along the Appalachian Trail. This leads them to fill Luke and Tara in on the case of Shane Wyland, from the season six episode “Into the Woods”. He’d committed a series of heinous murders along that trail as well, and disappeared without a trace before the BAU could catch him. Could it be that he’s resurfaced and resumed his crime spree?

Nope. Wyland’s victims were children, and the remains found in this case all look to be from multiple adult victims – five of them, to be exact. Therefore, it appears the area’s got a whole new serial killer on their hands, and the homeless man is suspect numero uno.

The guy’s not exactly lying low, however. In fact, the next time we see him, he’s coming across a man lying somewhere in the woods, muzzled, bound, and evidently terrified...and he looks at this man with unsettling interest. Looks like there’ll be a new addition to the victim pool fairly soon.

Thankfully, this is a local case, so the team doesn’t have to travel very far. Emily and Reid stay back at Quantico, while Rossi and Tara head out to explore the campsite where the body parts were found and help examine the evidence. They’re hoping some of these items can give them some clue as to the identity of the victims, too, since there haven’t been any recent reports of locals going missing. Considering how popular this area is for hikers, Rossi figures that’s a possible angle worth looking at. Problem is, though, hikers can come from anywhere in the country, which could make their ID search that much tougher. Still, it’s a starting point, at least.

Later, Rossi joins JJ in viewing surveillance footage featuring the homeless guy robbing the store. The clerk notes that the guy doesn’t steal any food for himself, but JJ has a creepy theory as to why: perhaps the body parts are his food supply, to which I say, ew. The footage does lead Rossi and JJ to briefly wonder if the homeless guy really is their unsub, however. He doesn’t seem to be the sort capable of committing such unusual and methodical crimes. Maybe he’s part of a team of killers instead?

Emily and Reid, meanwhile, take a quick trip out to the coroner’s office to learn what they can about the victims themselves. They may not have names to put to the bodies yet, but they do manage to get some other pertinent information. Four of the victims were men between forty and fifty years old, and the remaining one was a female in her twenties. This seems to indicate a lack of preference in victims.

Reid also discovers the victims were hacked to death, and the coroner gives Emily and Reid an estimated time of death for each victim. One male looked to have been dead for at least a year or more. The other three men were killed around eight, five, and two months prior, and the female’s been dead for about a week. The gap between the time of the first and second murders is odd, but the fact that the killer’s speeding up his murders is, obviously, the more pressing concern at the moment.

Elsewhere, Luke works with a group of men taking search and cadaver dogs into the wooded area. The dog he’s with immediately sniffs out a bloody knapsack...and there’s yet another set of bloody remains next to it. The backpack has the initials K.F. on it, and through Tara’s observations of the shape and setup of the backpack, she concludes it must belong to their female victim. That should come as some relief to Garcia, who’s been conducting a frustratingly expansive search for any missing persons.

Fortunately, she eventually manages to get a hit on their female victim. The woman’s name was Kylie Fleming, and she’d been reported missing about a week ago. Her last contact with family and friends was a text message, in which she’d mentioned “seeing something scary” in the woods. But she never said what that something was. Based off Kylie’s tweet, as well as the news that two more male victims have been discovered, Reid comes to the conclusion that Kylie was merely a “wrong place, wrong time” victim, a witness to the unsub’s crimes who needed to be silenced. Since the rest of the victims were all men, this indicates their unsub does have a victim preference after all.

Despite the team’s presence in the area, the homeless guy’s still hanging out in the woods, and returns to that muzzled man he found earlier. The man is dead, and this fact surprisingly seems to upset the man...until he takes a hatchet to the victim, that is. A short time later, another man walking out of a store gets attacked with a shovel. Looks pretty clear who our killer is now.

Later, after getting a tip from the trooper indicating a nearby town the unsub may have escaped to, Luke and Tara head out there to see what they can find. While trekking through a wooded area out there, Luke and Tara get separated, and the homeless guy attacks her! After a brief struggle, Luke arrives in the nick of time, and slaps the cuffs on the guy. Finally, their suspect’s in custody.

Thing is, though, he doesn’t seem to want to talk much. Which is a problem, given there’s a man (whose name, we learn, is Howard Walker) still missing out there. All Tara can get out of their suspect is that his name is Todd, and he’s looking for his missing dog. Emily decides to try interviewing him, and that’s when the interview takes a really weird turn. The dog’s name is Cormac, but Todd says he didn’t name him that. He also says that Cormac was “small at first, then big”...and that he’s younger than him.

Luke tries to help by bringing his own dog Roxy in, hoping that her presence will stir Todd to talk more about this mysterious missing Cormac. Todd gets angry and turns away, however, and between that and the weird comments Todd made to Emily, it becomes clear that Todd’s definitely not talking about an actual dog. Rather, Cormac must be a person, and a family member at that.

Rossi and JJ, meanwhile, are trying to figure out how the unsub got as far as he did with Howard. He doesn’t have a car, after all. They believe he’s found a new spot to take his victims, now his old site’s been discovered. And they appear to be right, as It doesn’t take long for us to find out where Howard is. He’s bound and muzzled like the other male victim from earlier, but instead of being dumped in the woods, he’s being kept in some kind of stable.

So what is the backstory on Todd and Cormac? Turns out they’re brothers. The only residence Garcia can find for them is out in a more rural area, but it’s been abandoned for the past year. It looks too far away for their unsub to have taken Howard there, but JJ heads out there with local officers to see what they can find anyway. She confirms the place is currently empty, but there is some evidence Todd had been there at some point.

We also learn that Todd and Cormac had a pretty heartbreaking childhood. Their mother died of cirrhosis of the liver, and their father was hideously abusive to both her and the boys. He eventually died, too, of a heart attack, and after his death, Todd and Cormac went their separate ways. Todd stayed in the area and became a drug addict, while Cormac left town altogether after turning eighteen. Unlike Todd, Cormac seemed to make a relatively stable life for himself, working at a sporting goods store. But once Cormac’s dad died, he came back to town...and disappeared. He was last seen fourteen months ago – around the time the murders started. Could Cormac be Todd’s first victim?

Emily returns to interview Todd further about Cormac. She pulls out one of the muzzles found at the crime scene, and that seems to trigger a reaction in Todd, as he reflects on his abusive childhood. Apparently, Todd’s father treated him and his brother like pigs, leaving them in the barn at night to punish them “’till it was time for the slaughter”. Sounds ominous. Todd clarifies, explaining that their dad would kill the pigs in the barn, and make him and his brother watch. Sometimes, he’d even make his sons get involved.

There is some truth to Todd’s ramblings about dogs, as Cormac actually did have a dog when he was a kid. Unfortunately, his dad took the dog away, and made Todd come with him to release it into the woods. Cormac was devastated by the loss of his beloved pet, and the loss led him to become angry and bitter.

Tara and Rossi spend their time interviewing a group of homeless men who remembered Todd, and referred to him as “Time Clock”, because of what they presumed was his job. He left really early in the day, and got home very late at night. Turns out he’d followed Cormac when he moved away, and stayed in the town in order to keep an eye on him. It’s then that Tara and Rossi make a surprising realization: Cormac’s alive, and he, not Todd, is their unsub. Todd merely disposes of the bodies as a means of cleaning up after his brother and protecting him from getting caught.

As for poor Howard, he’s coming face to face with Cormac, who tells him “it’s time for the slaughter”. Cormac starts going on about how he’s an animal, speaking to Howard as though he’s his father, recalling the horrors he’d witnessed in that barn. Luke and JJ arrive shortly thereafter, and Cormac gives up pretty quickly after that. Emily informs Todd that Cormac’s been found, and is safe and happy thanks to him. There’s no guarantee Todd will ever see his brother again, but the news seems to bring him some comfort all the same.

I liked the twist regarding the brothers in this episode – I felt they did a good job building Todd up to look pretty guilty, to where the news about Cormac was a genuine surprise. And the story about both boys’ childhood was truly heartbreaking – losing a pet is never easy, especially when they’re taken from you in such a cruel, heartless manner, and the horrid abuse Todd and Cormac suffered made it hard not to feel for them a little. They both just came across as lost, lonely people, and as twisted as Todd’s method of looking out for his brother was, his concern was understandable, and oddly touching, in a way. I also thought it was interesting that Todd, who was a drug addict and shoplifter, was the innocent one, while Cormac, who seemed to live a more “normal” life as an adult, was the one who went down the dark route of murder.

Still, I felt the case itself wrapped up rather abruptly. Cormac says something about cornered animals giving up and...that was it. I suppose that could imply he was getting tired of killing people, perhaps, but I feel like there could’ve been a little more tension to his takedown. And we know his killing men of a certain age range was his way of taking out his rage on his father, but since we never really did get to learn more about most of the male victims, that still leaves a few unanswered questions about his choice of victims. Was he picking people who looked like his dad? Was he initially picking people who he believed had an intimidating, aggressive streak to them, only to eventually devolve into just killing any man he could find? The couple male victims we did get to see didn’t really come across as threatening, after all. I would’ve liked to maybe get a little more insight into those aspects of the case.

That said, however, I do think the lack of information on most of the victims added to the haunting nature of this case, and fit the episode’s theme of looking out for those close to you. Will these men remain John Does forever, or will their loved ones eventually come to claim them and bring them home?

I also enjoyed the nod to the case from “Into the Woods”, and in some ways, think it would’ve been rather interesting if the unsub from that case had returned to start up his crime spree again. He may not be one of the remaining escaped convicts the team will be searching for throughout the season, but given the theme of unsubs from the past rearing their nasty heads again, it would’ve been fitting to have Wyland be a surprise side encounter all the same.

Overall, though, I did like the case as it was, especially Todd’s concern for his brother. It nicely paralleled the events happening with Reid this week, which dealt with a rollercoaster of dramatic developments related to his mom’s health struggles.

Meanwhile, back at Quantico:

Reid’s day starts off on a surprisingly joyous note, thanks to a phone call which brings some very exciting news. We all remember the heartbreaking moment last season when Reid revealed that his mom, who’s struggled with schizophrenia much of her life, was also in the early stages of developing onset Alzheimer’s disease. Ever the loyal, caring son, Reid’s been spending as much time with her as possible since then, and trying to see if there was any hope for her to get some sort of help for her illness.

Happily, it seems his wish has finally been granted. There’s a Johns Hopkins clinical trial happening soon for a group of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s...and Diana has made the list of participants! Normally, these sorts of trials focus on trying to find ways to slow the spread of the disease, but in this particular case, there’s also a chance the treatment could go as far as potentially reversing Alzheimer’s altogether! It’s a truly fantastic, hopeful bit of news, and Reid’s positively giddy over the whole idea. Seeing him in such a celebratory mood, spinning happily in his chair and actually letting out a whoop of delight, it’s flat out impossible to not share in his infectious enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, that good news buzz doesn’t last very long.

Many readers are no doubt familiar with the running gag in ‘Peanuts’ where Charlie Brown eagerly looks forward to kicking a football and having a winning moment, only for Lucy to snatch the ball away at the last moment and leave poor ol’ Charlie defeated. I’ve come to the realization that that gag pretty much describes Reid’s attempts to find anything resembling happiness on this show.

This episode just furthers that comparison, because later on, Reid gets a rather distressing call from the Las Vegas police informing him his mom had been found wandering aimlessly around a casino. Thankfully, the police get her back to her facility safely, but Reid’s clearly troubled by the news regardless. Rossi and JJ urge him to forgo the case and head home to Vegas to spend some time with his mom. Reid reluctantly agrees, but new developments in the case wind up delaying his trip. Emily takes that opportunity to express her own sympathies over the entire sad situation and lend Reid a little comfort, a scene which was sorely welcome and very sweet. I’ve always adored the close friendship between Reid and Emily, and it’s so great to have it be part of the show again.

At the end of the episode, Reid’s all packed up and ready to go when he gets another call from home. Turns out he won’t need to make that trip home after all. Just when we thought the news couldn’t get any sadder, Reid learns that due to budget constraints, his mom wound up getting cut from participating in the clinical trial. He’s not going to let this latest blow deter him, though, telling Rossi he’s going to keep looking for any other similar trials that might be willing to take his mom on board.

Rossi gently puts the brakes on Reid’s plans to offer some rather poignant advice. He’s all for Reid doing what he can to help his mom, of course, but he also reminds Reid of the importance of spending some actual time with her as well. Barring some sort of miracle, her disease will consume her eventually, after all, and Rossi just wants Reid to be able to treasure whatever time he does have left with her before that happens. Reid seems to consider Rossi’s advice, but after Rossi leaves, Reid makes a call to another clinic, and sets up an appointment with one of the doctors to talk about his mom. Time will tell what, if anything, becomes of that conversation.

I loved Reid and Rossi’s heart to heart talk here. Be it with Maeve’s death or reuniting with his dad or mourning the loss of Gideon, Rossi’s always known just how to help Reid through a difficult time, and after losing so many father figures and mentors, it’s great to see Reid opening up to Rossi and turning to him for comfort and advice. Rossi was a good mix of honest and sympathetic here, and hopefully Reid takes his suggestions to heart.

That said, however, to say I’m saddened by this latest news about Reid’s mom would be quite an understatement. It was SUCH a pleasure to see Reid so freaking thrilled about something at the start of this episode. The only other moments where I can recall seeing Reid showing anything resembling that level of excitement and happiness are related to his godsons Henry and Michael, or his hitting a home run at a softball game. That kind of pure joy just isn’t all that common for him, and that’s a shame, because I want to see him looking that happy much more often! He’s been through so much pain and tragedy in his life, and he deserves to have something to celebrate and look forward to for a change.

So does Diana, for that matter. Fans have come to care about her as a character over the years, too, and her relationship with Reid has been one of the most lovely ones throughout the show’s history. It hurts to think of her suffering, and with such bleak prospects at that. I’m continuing to brace for the worst with this storyline as the season progresses, as Rossi’s comments about Reid having a “finite amount of time” with his mom don’t exactly help ease my fears. But the optimist in me wants to keep clinging to hope, too. It’ll be interesting to see which side will win out.

On a significantly happier note, Garcia and Luke’s paths cross at the workplace elevator yet again this episode. Garcia’s still trying to put up her “I refuse to like you” front around him...until Luke properly introduces her to Roxy. You can practically SEE Luke and Roxy making their way into Garcia’s animal-loving heart (though let’s be real, who wouldn’t instantly fall in love with Roxy?), and watching her play with Luke’s dog is incredibly cute.

Luke then confesses to basically profiling Garcia in order to find the best way to get her attention. He didn’t want to push her to become friends with him, because he knew she missed Morgan and he wanted to give her space to mourn. But he also knew the mere mention of a girl’s name would make her nosy, gossipy self curious, to the point where, if she did want to get to know him better, the ball would be in her court. Evidently, the plan worked, and I think it’s safe to say the ice has officially begun to thaw between these two. In short, dogs make everything better, and I look forward to seeing Luke and Garcia hang out more often and become friends.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Did the twist with the brothers work for you? How creepy/heartbreaking was the case? Are you remaining hopeful about Diana Reid’s future? Did you enjoy seeing Garcia and Luke get closer? Share your thoughts in the comments!